Incense
by Ann O'Neem
Summary: When one is graced with a long life, the boredom seems pretty inevitable. As such, Hakutaku is ready to do anything. Even visiting a dying kid in the human world.


**So I read somewhere in tumblr about Hōzuki's past and then... Sudden inspiration! And thus, I wrote this thing today. I don't know if it's good. I don't even know if it's more or less canon but well... I wanted to write some Hoohaku/Hakuoni and I think it's credible. Or not. And the story is probably full of errors but still I hope you'll like it.**

**Also, the cover isn't mine. At all.**

* * *

It is summer when Hakutaku descends on Earth. His drunken haze is slowly fading away and he can feel the incoming headache tingling all around his temples. It isn't really something that he doesn't know nor isn't accustomed to so he settles on taking refuge under a tree shade and then wait for the unnamed goddess who is after his hide to calm down.

The human world can be dangerous, even more when he is drunk so Hakutaku decides to keep his human form. He curbs against an old tree and sighs wholeheartedly. The cicadas' cry are loud to his sensible ears and he scrunches his face.

The shade is really nice for his sensible skin and he close his eyes, letting the birds' songs and the cicadas cry lull him to sleep.

It is the sound of heavy steps that wake him. He doesn't move, eyes still closed and flares his nostrils a bit. He can pinpoint from the incoming smell that two humans are approaching. Hakutaku doesn't move.

The two humans step next to his hiding place and he opens quietly an eye. From his resting place, he can see the two humans. They are three in fact and Hakutaku opens both of his eyes when he notices that there are two adults, two men with scruffy faces and old kimono, with a small child between them.

Grey eyes narrow and he frowns.

The humans continue walking, the small child's steps are unwavering and Hakutaku is briefly intrigued by the kid before he remembers his headache. He sighs heavily and closes his eyes.

The cicada cry is louder than before.

Hakutaku scowls and turns until his face is pressed against the dry earth. He creaks open an eye and watches two ants try to climb over his nose before he snorts and gets up. Just as he does that, the two men come back from wherever they went. Hakutaku blinks with surprise and the two men, villagers probably, do the same. Hakutaku doesn't know where he could be. He guesses it's somewhere in Japan because he remembers a small argument with a goddess wearing an intricate and beautiful kimono.

The silence around them is heavy. The cicadas' cry intensifies.

Hakutaku never was good with tension so he decides to get straight to the point.

"Greetings, villagers," he says with a polite smile.

One of the humans freezes while the other shivers. They seems to be petrified by his sight and Hakutaku is a bit intrigued until he remembers that they are mere villagers. And that he is wearing clothes that are probably more expensive than their whole village. The two humans suddenly fall to their knees and prostrate themselves to his feet. Hakutaku isn't really surprised and he sighs.

He isn't drunk anymore and seeing those humans prostrated at his feet annoys him.

One of the villagers splutters something, probably begging for his life or wishing for something. Hakutaku knows that he is supposed to be a celestial beast of good luck and normally he would indulge them so they would leave him alone. But they went back without the child and that annoys him.

So he decides to leave and merely nods his heads sternly before he steps out of the shade and disappears in the mountain.

The two humans shivered another time and quickly scrambled to their village.

From his spot on the top of a tree, Hakutaku observes them run until they got to their village, watches them talk with their family, notices that everyone seems preoccupied by something, that everything seems too dry in the village and takes notes of the starved villagers.

Hakutaku twirl a leave between his fingers and ponders over leaving the things as they are or... Step in. His eyes narrow when he remembers the small frame of the child. He didn't get to see the kid's face and merely remembers how the human walked without fear to its demise.

He stops thinking and crushes the leave in his hand. It was too dry and the bits fall from his hand to the ground. There isn't any wind and the cicada cry seems almost alive, taking its hold on the heavy and hot summer air.

Hakutaku jumps from the tree and decides to go back to the Heavens.

He needs a drink.

* * *

**(◡‿◡✿)**

* * *

The Heavens' sake and food are delicious. The women are beautiful and Hakutaku doesn't seem to have enough time to indulge himself in all those pleasure.

Yet...

Yet, he ends bored and watches the human world from a solitary cloud. He's flying over some remote part of China and can see the humans live their everyday life. That distracts him a bit from his boredom but also reminds him about the Japanese child. He sighs and turns so he's facing the bright blue sky.

He considers going to annoy Phoenix or Kirin but decides against it. Kirin is an annoying old man and Phoenix always nags him. Hakutaku closes his eyes and lets his thoughts wander until he's startled by one of them and jumps to his feet.

That child... Who would bury its body? Or give it the last blessings needed to enter the Heavens?

Condemning a small child's fate like that didn't settle well with Hakutaku.

He goes to his house in Shangri-La and changes his clothes. Now he looks like a traveler, something that wouldn't rise suspicions from the villagers and he carefully puts his bangs over his eye on his forehead. He doesn't know why but he's almost giddy when he closes the door and leaves for the human world.

Also, a weight seems to have vanished from his chest. Hakutaku doesn't really care about it but now he can breathe easily.

When he falls to the human world, he's in his celestial beast's form. He flies aimlessly, hiding himself behind clouds and trees once he's closer to the mountain. There aren't a lot of clouds so he has to be extra careful. He lands without a sound and quietly morphs into his human body. Then, he makes sure that his pouch containing the incense (seven sticks of it. It was a lucky number after all) and embalmers is on his hip before he begins waking.

The air is hot and he soon breaks into a sweat. He has to swat away big and loud flys and frowns as he does so. There shouldn't be so many insects in a mountain. He continues walking under the loud cicada cry and almost stumbles over a rock. He frowns and pants a little when he finally finds the place.

It's a small and decrepit shrine. The three stairs leading to the shrine are broken and dandelions are trying to sprout there. The shrine in itself seems to be correctly taken care of but that doesn't really concern Hakutaku.

Because he can see the heavy miasma floating around a small dark haired head.

Hakutaku walks carefully to the shrine and eyes the child that seems to be sleeping in the shrine. The child has its eyes closed and dark hair tied into a bun on the top of its head.

Hakutaku sets his pouch on the ground and sits on his heel, observing silently the child's inexpressive face. Time passes and a grasshopper jumps on the child's face to nestle itself on the child's nose. The latter scrunches its nose and whines weakly before the child opens its eyes. The child swats the grasshopper away with a weak hand and turns its head. That is when their eyes first met.

Hakutaku feels his breath get punched away from his lungs and he just sits there, with a gobsmacked face while the child keeps looking at him with dark and unrelenting eyes.

They don't move and neither want to do the first move.

The miasma's smell in pungent but Hakutaku doesn't really care. He isn't drunk but he can hear his heartbeat rumble loudly in his ears as he can feel his head swirl a bit.

Those dark eyes aren't blinking.

It is a cicada flying suddenly between them that stops the strange spell. Hakutaku takes a deep breath and can faintly hear the child doing the same.

"Hello," he greets informally and he's met with those dark eyes.

The child doesn't blink and Hakutaku almost shivers when he notices how the miasma is thick. That child won't be saved from Hell.

Hakutaku sighs. All the things that he did, walking under that heat and with those annoying flys when the child was already doomed. That was really disrupting.

Hakutaku stretched his limbs and opened his pouch to take out the incense. He munched pensively on his under lip and shrugged. If he had taken the time to actually go and meet that child, he could always give him the incense.

"Take this," he said as he threw the seven incense sticks. "Could help you appease some demons..."

The child didn't move and the incense fell all over its scrawny chest. Hakutaku snorted and began laughing before he regained his composure. He straightened his chest and patted his traveler's clothes to dust himself.

"Take care, child," he added before he left the sanctuary.

But before he leaves the clearing, Hakutaku hears a faint voice and he stops walking.

"They call me Chō. Not child," The voice is weak yet holds a lot of hidden strength.

Hakutaku narrows his eyes and keeps looking in front of him. He doesn't want to show his annoyed face to the child, he didn't do anything to deserve that. He considers leaving without retorting but it doesn't feel right to him. Hakutaku tilts his head and finally turns around until his eyes meet the child's.

"But Unwanted is not your name," Hakutaku retorts calmly. "So until next time, you'll just be a child for me."

The dark eyes suddenly widen in what seems to be shock and the child seems to ponder over an answer. In the end, the child just turns its head so Hakutaku can't see those eyes anymore and the celestial beast decides to leave like that.

He doesn't comment on those quiet sniffles and leaves without a word.

When he gets back to the Heavens, Hakutaku decides to drink and without really realising it, he ends drunk. The days pass and when he leaves his drunken haze and remembers the child, months have passed.

It is again summer when Hakutaku descends on Earth. The cicada cry is louder than ever and he winces when his headache worsen from the ruckus. He walks with a slight stagger in his steps but that doesn't deter him. When he sees the shrine, Hakutaku laughs weakly and advances until his feet stumble over something almost weightless. He gets on his knees and picks the incense sticks, noticing that some of them had been used while others were still a bit humid from being on the dirty earth. He counts them and smiles wearily when he realises that there are only six sticks.

Hakutaku stands and sits on the shrine entry, his sandals kicking some pebbles while he looks pensively at the blue sky. He twirls absentmindedly the six incense sticks and takes a deep breath. Behind him, the shrine is empty. There isn't any corpse. The miasma has since long ago left.

"So you went and became a demon," Hakutaku muses as he closes his eyes. "I wonder how you'll use that last incense stick."

* * *

**(✿◕ ‿ ◕✿)**

* * *

Hakutaku is sprawled across the mattress and the other occupant isn't appreciating that sight at all. He groans and dugs the sleeping Chinese from under the heavy blankets until he falls on the icy cold floor. Hakutaku wakes up with a small squeak and he rubs vividly his limbs while his teeth chatter loudly.

"You evil demon," he whines as he tries to get back in the bed. "Why did you do that!"

"You shouldn't sleep in places like that, Hakubuta-san," the demon retorted with a straight face. "It could give ideas to some people..."

Hakutaku made a disgusted face and stretched his arms until his articulations popped back in place. He flopped down on the bed and observed with calm eyes the demon who was hunched over his last project. Hakutaku yawned loudly and he sniffed discreetly to get a whiff of the demon's preparation. But in place of the foul smell of sulphur and sweet smell of kindan, the only thing that the celestial beast noticed was the startling and fascinating smell of incense.

Hakutaku stood from the bed and made a beeline to the demon's desk. The latter stopped whatever he was doing and glanced at him with a small glare but Hakutaku didn't even notice it. His eyes were only focused on the small stick of incense that was slowly burning next to a Crystal Hitoshi-kun.

"Hey, Ghibli freak," Hakutaku said with an almost breathless voice. "Where did you get that incense?"

"Ah?" The demon breathed with annoyance and he put down his pencil to glance at the incense. "Isn't it obvious? It is the generic mortuary incense of Shangri-la. I quite favour that one over the Hell's one. It appeases me and that is needed when someone decides that invading my room during my day-off is amusing..."

Hakutaku ignored the remark and his eyes finally left the incense burning stick to look intensively at the demon. The latter didn't blink and Hakutaku scrunched his face while he furrowed his eyebrows.

"What is it, Hakubuta-san?" The demon asked with a sigh. "I won't be able to work if you keep looking like an idiot at me."

"Shut up," Hakutaku snapped back and he folded his arms on his chest. He leaned back until he sat on the desk and hunched his face closer to the demon's. "You're such a tsundere. So uncute."

The demon slightly widened his eyes in surprise and he cocked his head while he furrowed his eyebrows.

"I don't see how I could be a tsundere as you put it," he carefully worded and then sighed. "But then, I'll never be able to understand you."

"Shut up," Hakutaku repeated and he huffed before he suddenly took hold of the demon's kimono and forced him to get closer. "Now let's get reacquainted, child."

The Chinese could feel the demon's lips stretch into a smirk seconds before they were pressed against his. The boiling kindan and the preparations were soon forgotten and they both ended in the bed.

"You're quite slow, Hakubuta-san," the demon stated as he was straddled by the celestial beast.

Hakutaku made him shut up with a deep kiss and let his hands wander over the defined torso. Now that he really looked at the demon, he could faintly see the dying child in the shrine and he smirked.

"You've grown well, child," he commented mockingly and was rewarded by a growl and nails digging trails of blood over his back.

"Don't say that," the demon chided coldly as he wasn't being pressed against a mattress and being undressed by another man. "Say it properly."

"You've grown well, Hōzuki," Hakutaku said as he kissed reverently the demon's pale skin.

The incense burned till the end of the night. By the end of it, Hakutaku felt his head swirl, his heart pound loudly in his chest and his eyelids were heavy with sleep. But he wasn't bored at all.


End file.
